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most excellent day
I spent the afternoon at the Physics Department picnic at Cordonices park.. I wasn't going to go, but then Diane called me up saying she wanted to go, so she and I and June all set out from campus to find this mysterious park. Toyoko said it was "kind of near the rose garden" and that I would probably find it if I "walked about ten minutes up Euclid," but that I should "consult a map." The only map I found was pretty vague on the matter, so we just set out Euclid.
The weather was super and it was quite nice just bounding out on Euclid Avenue, through all the tree-lined streets with nifty old houses and flowers blooming. Eventually we got to the Berkeley Rose Garden, and it was simply amazing! Oddly enough I've never been there when roses were actually in bloom. Instead of truncated rose stems, the whole place was a mass of color! I took quite a lot of pictures.
Across the street from the Rose Garden is Cordonices Park and a reservoir. The park has a baseball diamond and two picnic areas, which are situated in amongst a stand of redwoods with a stream running through the middle. And of course a throng of people from the physics department. I only recognized about three people, though, including Profs. Jacobsen and McKee. There was a scrumptious barbeque and we gorged ourselves appropriately.
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Just a few minutes after I got back to the lab at Donner Hall I got a call from Billy who wanted to go check co-op rooftops for line-of-sight connections. You see, we want to network all the co-ops with rootftop-to-rooftop wireless network links, so we need to find out which co-ops can actually see each other. This proved tremendously entertaining. All the co-opers we spoke with were hugely enthusiastic about our plan, and we got to climb up on the roofs of many of the houses, only quitting when the light got too dim. It was a pretty fun project, though, and we made a lot of progress.
One highlight was getting to explore the Lothlorian tree house for the first time. Another was when a guy at Cloyne ran up to me saying, "I'm Saku! I'm Saku!" At first I had no idea what he was talking about, but then I realized he was talking about my shirt, which says "Saku Originaal" on the back (and "Elu hea õlu! Originaal!") It turns out he was Finnish, and, well, soon we were the best of friends. Another would be standing on top of Castro house, watching the sun set into the bay and the fog roll down the hills, or seeing Haley and having a delicious dinner at Davis.
I started jabbering on about some of the various ideas I'd had for other projects, and it turns out that Billy had some of the exact same ideas. So now there's no stopping us!
Wandering through all these co-ops, I can't help but resolve to return to Berkeley, after, well, let's just call it a short (or, more likely, rather long) sabbatical. (example conversational usage: "I hear Tobin's going to grad school at U of R" "Oh, no, he's just on sabbatical there.")
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We walked into Wilde as the last stop on our co-op tour (after Kingman, Cloyne, Stebbins, Kidd, Davis, Loth, Castro) and immediately multiple people announced emphatically: "DON'T EAT THE DINNER!" -- a warning that it was full of peanuts and they really didn't want me to die.
In the living room I ran into Sarah who is taking a semester off from Berkeley to live and go to school in Santa Cruz. She gave me a big kiss!
Walking up the stairs I thought to myself, "my cheek feels all glowy from that kiss! how sweet!"
And then I thought, "no! it's the peanut juice!"
But then, "no, it was the kiss. how sweet."
And then, "no! it's the peanut juice on a sunburn!"
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Diane found these amazing M&M-like candies that are actually flavored. This really is the 21st century now!
Also, this is pretty nifty: http://rum.csua.berkeley.edu/~tobin/1660.pdf
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you were at my house, staring at me face to face. I didnt say anything. Err.. maybe because I was embarassed.
Im glad codornices is open because I want to have a picnic.
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Codornices is lovely.
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You were the redhead?
Anyways, a wireless movie network is a great idea and I hope your friend can get on our roof.
I especially liked the swings at codornices, though I havent seen any being reconstructed.
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yup.
yeah, the swings-area at codornices was still under construction. it looked like they were mainly working on the road itself, though (some kind of digging).
Any interest in starting the Stebbins Hall (http://csua.berkeley.edu/~tobin/wiki/moin.cgi/Stebbins_20Hall) page on the Wiki (http://csua.berkeley.edu/~tobin/wiki/moin.cgi/)? (-:
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I like the sabbatical idea. I've been calling it exile. Wayne has decided he really likes the Bay Area and wants to live there, so hopefully we'll go back there sometime.
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http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=05-07-04&storyID=18811
My main part in that project was to uncover vulnerabilities in the ASUC online election process. Dan came up with the new scheme, and I actually haven't fully reviewed his proposal yet.